


30 Minutes

by Silverwing26



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Angst, Dark, Drama, Language, M/M, Mindfuck, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-07 02:42:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1114540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverwing26/pseuds/Silverwing26
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>High atop the bones of Tower Bridge, an angel and a demon battle for one boy's soul. Unbeknownst to Sebastian, the real war wages deep within the very being of Ciel Phantomhive. There is a price to be paid for walking into damnation, there is a price to be paid for walking out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bonds Are Made To Be Broken

The covenant was broken.

 

A searing pain cut through Ciel's head, the epicenter of the torture being the boy's right eye. Ciel's hand flew to his eye, pressing fiercely against the black silk eye patch. He inhaled shakily **,** trying to ward off the sudden heaving in his stomach as the pain wracked him. What had happened? He tried to clear his thoughts. The pain was ebbing slowly, allowing reason to pry its way back into his brain. He had felt pain like that only once before, when Sebastian had seared the contract into his blue eye. He felt oddly hollow as the pain trickled away and the ache dimmed to a constant throb. 

 

Fear. That was what he was feeling. A cold weight was sitting in his stomach and he felt as though someone was slowly pouring ice water down his spine.Why could he not feel Sebastian? He whipped his head around and found that he was engulfed in darkness. The only light seemed to be emanating from him, or somewhere right above him. The floor he found himself standing on was reminiscent of a chessboard. The black and white squares were highly polished and his pale reflection stared back at him. 

 

_Think!_ he commanded himself. He and Sebastian had been tailing the angel. The revenge he had worked so desperately for was close at hand. Hand... Sebastian had been injured. Ash, the angel's current form, had taken Sebastian's arm. "That bastard!" Ciel spit forth with venom dripping from his words. 

 

How did he get here, though? He remembered feathers. White feathers, not the soft black ones that Ciel would find now and then around the mansion. Sebastian had used his own body to shield Ciel from the heavenly projectiles. The young Earl had been thrown to his back with Sebastian draped over him. The butler's larger body was a warm weight, protecting him against the danger and the chilled evening air. Ciel had instinctively put his arms around the older man as he fell. When he pulled his hands away, they were dripping crimson. Ciel's expression was etched with a mixture of shock and concern as he sought out his butler's face. The blood soaking his hands was already cooling and becoming sticky. 

 

Sebastian's eyes found his Master's. They stared into Ciel's blue eye and for the first time, Sebastian had, in all sincerity, asked for a favor. "Please close your eyes, Young Master," he had asked. "I cannot risk marring your image of me."

 

His voice was soft, so tender and unlike the normally mocking lilt that often passed the butler's lips. Ciel didn't question it further. He stared at his devil protector and closed his eyes. Ciel felt Sebastian's weight shift off of him and then a searing pain ripping through his eye socket had jolted him to his feet. 

 

The boy shook his head. Sebastian had been protecting him. He was always protecting him. Where was he now? More importantly, where was the angel now? Most importantly, perhaps, where was Ciel now? The darkness was unnerving. A shiver coursed down the boy's spine, raising gooseflesh. He spent so much time in the darkness, surrounded by the creatures of the shadows, and dealing with matters that should never see light that the black of night had ceased to bother him quite some time ago. Well, apart from those nightmares, but he surely wasn't sleeping now. It gave Ciel serious pause to realize how much this vast, dark expanse of nothingness was unsettling him. 

 

Perhaps it was because for the first time, in a very long time, the boy stood alone. There was no shadow-wreathed knight by his side to ensure the denizens of the dark would not lay a hand on him. Sebastian was Ciel's pawn, as he liked to claim. This was true; the orders that moved the demon and urged him forward to manipulate, kill, draw suffering, and exact revenge came from the mouth of the tortured thirteen-year-old boy. The power, however, came from the demon. Ciel swallowed thickly. Was his genius, his strategy and his will any good at all without the power to back it up? 

 

His heels clicked loudly on the polished floor. The echo did nothing to calm his nerves, making it sound as though another walked with him. There should be someone walking with him. There should be a dark presence a few paces behind him. The lack of the demon's human form following on his heels was even more disconcerting than having no earthly idea where he currently was. It did not matter in which direction he turned. The black and white squares spread out around him, and the only illumination hovered just above him. _Where the hell are you, Sebastian?_ Came the uneasy thought.

 

With no direction, his eyes drifted downwards to settle on the polished marble beneath his feet. He stood on a large black square, his pale features staring back at him. It was almost like black glass, and he found himself wondering what it was he was actually standing on. Glass? Marble? Something else entirely? His reflection disturbed him. A boy with scared eyes and worry etched in the way his lips tugged down was looking back at him. Ciel scowled at himself. He was no cowering boy. He was the Earl of Phantomhive. He reassured himself this had not changed as he ran his thumb over the spot his family ring used to occupy. He forced himself to take a deep breath and he slowly watched his eyes harden with resolve. He still had a goal. He was still Ciel Phantomhive. 

 

Slowly, the boy lowered himself down onto one knee. He balanced himself by pressing one small hand to the ground as he continued to look at his reflection in the eerie, dark tile. He was returning to himself. A sharp, stabbing pain pierced his right eye suddenly and he winced his eyes closed. He forced them open again with a sharp breath and refocused on the image of himself. Something caught his attention. It was almost as if he could see deeper into the reflection than what was currently surrounding him. He could still see himself kneeling and looking down into the floor, but if he turned his eye just right, he could see beyond his reflected image. His eye slid up just slightly and past his visage he saw... himself. 

 

Ciel saw himself lying quite still with his eyes pressed closed. He recognized the crates and building materials stacked about his small form. The reminder of how small and vulnerable he actually was did not sit well with him and his lips tugged downwards in a grimace. Ciel resisted the urge to spread his fingers over the dark surface. Some fear was keeping him from trying to touch the image before him. He watched as dark swirls curled around his prone form. They crept in slowly, not unlike the fog rolling off the Thames. A thick wisp began to curl about his ankle, black smokey tendrils, like fingers, slid up one pale leg. His free hand brushed at his ankle as he crouched, as if his actions would have any effect on the strange reflections before him. 

 

The darkness continued to slowly, oh so slowly, encroach on the boy. He watched the facsimile of his own small body, unaware of the mist coming straight for it. Ciel was afraid of the darkness that tried to wrap around him. He squeezed his hand into a fist. Rationally, he knew he was in no danger. It was just darkness, just mist, and it was just a reflection. Yet... What did he really know about anything at this moment? His great strength was in what he knew, what he could deduce and what advantage he could calculate. The boy found himself agitated and confused and neither of these states of mind did him much good. The tendril moved to slide up the boy's leg further and a patch of the ground on which his reflected self was lying cleared. A sizable splatter of blood drew Ciel's eye. Harshly, he tore his eyes away from himself and let them search through the black reflection and the thick tendrils of fog to find another blood splatter and another. 

 

He froze. Ciel stopped his eyes from moving any further. He was looking at his body lying on the bridge. He was looking at the mists that had attacked him as Sebastian threw his body in the way of Ash's attack. Ciel remembered... 

 

"Please close your eyes, Young Master," Sebastian had asked. "I cannot risk marring your image of me."

 

Curiosity would not get the better of him. He felt he owed Sebastian that much at least. While Ciel was certain nothing would change his impression of his butler at this point, he still had agreed to the request. His eyes slid along the vapor trails back to his own form. _Click._ Ciel's eyes grew wide and they took in the reflection of the boy who was perched on the floor, looking into a reality he was a part of a short while ago. _Click._ Just as he was about to turn his head to find the source of the footsteps, movement caught his eye. Over his right shoulder, a man approached out of the darkness. Ciel almost relaxed... _Almost._ The suit that emerged from the darkness was not familiar. It was not the comforting black that signified power and hidden secrets, but the stark cold radiance of white, where sins were shrouded in purity with the false promise of salvation.

 

Ciel raised his head and black hair fell across his eye. His gaze lifted higher, past white trousers and the hilt of a sword. They slid up a fine, white waistcoat and over a flowing cravat. Ciel gritted his teeth as he took in a soft smile set in porcelain skin and his blue eye practically burned as it bore into familiar lavender eyes set amongst a mess of white hair. He whipped his head around, but over his shoulder there was only darkness. The emptiness around him echoed with a deep laugh tinged with amusement. Ciel knew this type of laugh. He was very familiar with a laugh that held mockery, with a laugh that was patronizing and filled with feigned warmth. However, instead of feeling a familiar mild irritation, this laughter made him want to simultaneously be ill and lash out with all the might his thin arms could manage. Shaking to control his fury, he turned his eyes back down towards the floor where Ash's shoulders were shaking with the last vestiges of his mirth. 

 

"You bastard." The boy's voice was a raspy whisper as he stared into the pale, reflected eyes. Ash's lips curled into a gentle smile again. The sincerity he was able to convey was a mockery in and of itself. At least the demon had the good taste to be open with his distaste, even though to the unwary it seemed his features were laced with a mischievous charm. Ciel's entire body went rigid. The image of Ash raised a white-gloved hand and laid it upon the boy's shoulder. The warmth seeping through the material of the glove also easily permeated Ciel's shirt and jacket. His eyes slid to the side, to look at the not-here-at-all hand. The warmth and the weight were present and real, but Ash did not stand behind him. A growing sense of unease settled over Ciel as he looked over his shoulder confirming that he truly sat alone on the stone floor. There was no man clad in white standing behind him, and yet when he turned his eyes back to the stone, Ash's reflection gazed back at him. It was in reflection only that the divine usher of massacre had his hands on the boy. His mind warred with itself as he could feel the weight of the man's hands on his body, but his eyes confusingly told him two different stories. 

 

"Relax, Ciel Phantomhive," Ash cooed. "I shall not hurt you. You have choices to make."

 

Ciel gritted his teeth and pushed his hand against the floor as he tried to raise himself to a standing position. Surprisingly though, the phantom weight on his shoulder kept him neatly crouched on the ground. "Unhand me. NOW." The strength was back in his voice and the crisp syllables echoed across the black nothingness. 

 

_Anytime now._ Ciel grimaced with dark thoughts, _Surely Sebastian is not in such dire straights he would leave me to deal the angel on my own..._

 

The smile never left the aristocratic face, but the humor drained from Ash's light purple eyes. He leaned his body forward and Ciel could feel the weight on his shoulder increase. With the white visage hovering over him, the boy felt at any moment a barrage of feathered projectiles might pierce him, drawing his blood to flow freely over the reflection on the floor. The angel spread death and bathed the world in the blood of the wicked and impure in an attempt to snuff out the unclean. Ciel scoffed to himself at the parody the angel presented. At least when he dealt death, it was honest. Ash's other hand slid from the hilt of his sword and touched the nape of the boy's neck. Ciel's head dipped as he tried to escape the grasp he could not see. That deep laughter echoed around him and the boy was struck by how icy and final the notes were. The man's laughter chimed like church bells with the finality of a funeral. Clothed fingers slid up his neck. The touch was too familiar, too gentle and it made Ciel's skin try to crawl off his body. He ceased his struggling a moment later when he felt a slight tension across his eye. His gaze darted to the reflection of Ash's eyes and in them he saw amusement and something else he was very familiar with - conceit.

 

Ciel felt Ash's fingers entwined in his hair one moment, and the next the strings holding his eye patch in place slackened. The silk fluttered to the floor and the reflection leaned his head down next to the boy's ear. He was so close his whispered words and warm breath tickled Ciel's ear. His right eye remained tightly closed and he once again tried to force himself to stand. When that proved pointless, he looked down. The eye patch at his feet rested against its reflected counterpart. 

 

"Open your eyes and see that you have been freed. You will be made pure yet, Ciel Phantomhive. Now only the easy choices remain."

 

Freed? Confusion clouded through Ciel's visible eye. There was only one way for him to be freed. "As you are still _here,_ _"_ the last word was ground out between the boy's teeth with such distaste that even Ash raised a pale brow, "and my soul still intact, then there is no freedom." 

 

"Little do you know, Master Phantomhive. So little. Here I thought you were of above average intelligence."

 

"You know nothing of me!" the boy shouted back. Ash's presence at his back, over his shoulder, was smothering. Ciel stared hard into the reflections at his feet. Silently, he willed Sebastian to hurry and to wake him from whatever bizarre nightmare he was currently having. He was no stranger to nightmares and reliving his worst days over and over during his long nights. They had felt quite real on many occasions, wrenching him from slumber with the screams pealingfrom his own throat. 

 

This was different. It felt oddly surreal and the angel's incorporeal form pressing against him in such a familiar fashion felt so alien, so licentious. 

 

"So distracted. Very well then. Let us fix that. Out of sight, out of mind, after all." Ash's grating laughter fell about Ciel's ears once more and the visage before him clouded over. All that remained before him was his own current reflection with Ash bent over him and his eye patch lying on the cold floor. The man smiled indulgently, and Ciel found it sickening. “I know a thing or two about you – How you came to be dragged into damnation for example,” a pregnant pause passed between them as Ash's reflection continued to smile. “how to get you out again, Master Phantomhive.”

 

Ciel's brow furrowed and his lips pressed in a firm line, not masking his aggravation in the slightest. His small frame shook with defiance, wanting nothing more than to throw Ash's offending hands from his body and pummel the creature. Ciel's talents were not physical, though. If this infuriating phantom wanted him to prove that he still held the upper hand by having control over a demon, so be it. Ash wanted him to be purified, wanted him out from under his Contract with Sebastian. Was it possible the angel had found a way to best the demon? The realization that something utterly unthinkable would have to happen in order for the contract to be broken slithered beneath his skin and Ciel shivered. No, Sebastian had told him that he would uphold their contract even through his own death. Ciel closed his eyes to calm his thoughts and was left with a seed of dread taking hold.

 

Ciel blinked and opened both eyes. That was the moment when he felt coarse rope coil around his intestines and begin to squeeze. At the same moment, he felt as though his lungs had somehow become void of air, and then filled with cotton so that he couldn't take a proper breath. 

 

Over his shoulder, Ash smiled serenely. Ciel stared into the floor. Two bewildered yet unmarred blue eyes stared back at him. "No!" he shouted at the reflection. This was not possible. The hollow feeling inside him filled with fear at his racing thoughts. His mind refused to accept such a thing, it was horrific. Sebastian surely couldn't be dead. Ciel had ordered him to defeat Ash. Nor would he void their contract. How was this possible? It just wasn't. This was not possible. Ciel's heart raced and he felt himself rock backwards as black spots clouded the edges of his vision. A few more ragged gasps in an attempt to catch his breath echoed through his ears, before he became aware of nothing at all. 


	2. Hate Is For Remembering

Laughter. Childish laughter that sounded so far away. Years away. Lifetimes away. 

Ciel blinked his eyes open. His cheek was pressed against the cold floor and the soft breaths escaping his lips clouded the tile with condensation. There was an aching pain in his temple that coursed through the rest of his head. With a groan, he started to push himself up. 

"You're awake!" a voice chirped at him. 

He turned his head to the side and his eyes widened before he remembered himself and schooled his expression into a scowl. He couldn't quite remember what he was doing, or where he was, but he was certain he hadn't intended to end up lying on a cold floor on his face. "Elizabeth?" he questioned with confusion in his voice. "What are you doing here?"

"Waiting for you to wake up, silly. You don't have a lot of time, you know."

"What?" It was all he could muster at the moment. 

A hand the boy could not see grabbed him by the elbow and eased him into a kneeling position. Ciel's body tensed and he tried to jerk his arm away. Elizabeth just shook her head and pointed at the floor beneath his knees. Ciel turned his eyes down and saw the reflections of himself and Elizabeth kneeling together on the floor, and to the boy's right - and slightly behind him - stood a butler dressed from head to toe in white. The visage turned Ciel's stomach and he swallowed a few times to keep his bile under control. Ash's presence was an affront to his senses and for the moment, the young Earl couldn't place why that was. 

Ciel raised a hand to his right cheek, the movement of his reflection catching his attention. His blue eyes cleared suddenly and realization forced his mouth open. Before his protests could leave his lips, Lizzie grabbed his hand. "Do you remember this garden?" Her fingers tightened around his hand and her green eyes shone brightly in the strange light that hovered above them. She gestured with her head towards the floor and her smile was so earnest. Ciel sighed and glanced down. As before, he had to look past his own reflection. It was like looking at yourself in the glassy surface of a pond, and then your eyes shifted ever so slightly, and you could see beyond its delicate surface to the wonder that hid beneath. 

The images presented to him had a cold, monochromatic glare. Ciel did remember, though. This garden was not on his grounds, not a part of the Phantomhive estate. No, this particular bower was tucked away on a corner of the Midford estate. It had been the pride of Alexis at the time. He showered his daughter with affection, and one summer decided that by the following spring, his princess should have a hedge maze all her own. Ciel blinked as the sheer force of a time long gone pushed at the back of his eyes. He refused to think about the time before his revenge became so important. His revenge...

"Do you remember this day, Ciel?" she asked once more, jostling him from his thoughts. "Aunt Ann was there. We had a picnic..."

Ciel tried to remember. His eyes traced along a low hedge wall and a soft gasp left his lips. There he sat in the grass. He was no more than five years old. His eyes were so bright in the spring sunlight, so wide with wonder. A voice called his name and the tiny boy's head turned. Ciel's reflection stood himself up and rushed off towards the voices. Ciel watched and a tight feeling began to form in his chest. He suddenly remembered what he was about to see. Tiny Ciel rounded a corner and lept straight into his mother's arms. She was so warm, and her embrace so tender. Ciel remembered. He remembered and he hated it. 

"We had such fun that day..."

Six-year-old Elizabeth ran from behind Rachael Phantomhive's skirts and threw her arms around Ciel the moment his mother put him down in the grass. When she released him, her hand found his and squeezed it tightly. The young Elizabeth pulled him along to her maze. The young boy reached out his hand and trailed it along the living wall. Multitudes of tiny leaves brushed against his fingers. He looked up towards the blue sky - the sky everyone likened to his eyes. Ciel felt a jolt in the pit of his stomach as he locked eye contact with his five-year-old self. The boy smiled at him so serenely, with so much hope in those unjaded eyes, and then turned his laughing face towards young Elizabeth and ran with her through the twists and turns of the maze. 

In a fit of childish giggles, the young nobles rolled themselves on the new spring grass in a clearing towards the center of the verdant maze. The small boy had no cares and no fears, no brands or mental scars. He had all the love in the world, and as bright a future as they come. After having caught his breath, he was up in the grass and with a laugh jumped to his feet and ran for a path of the maze he had not yet walked. The young lady Elizabeth jumped up, her skirts and petticoats swaying about her ankles and bounded off after the small boy.

"You ran from me," Elizabeth cooed gently.

"I wanted to see if you would chase me..." he replied honestly. Was it an inclination of all children to see if someone would chase after them? Or did that quirk belong to Ciel alone? 

"I did chase you. You disappeared though..."

Ciel nodded. He furrowed his brow as the memories came to him. He had them locked so tightly away inside of himself that he was sure they would never see the light of day again. He could almost feel himself choking on the dust that wafted off them as they surfaced in his mind. He had hidden...

It was a perfect spot. The hedge row took a sharp turn to the left, and just after the turn was a lovely tree. Ciel ran behind the sharp turn, and tucked himself in the hollow between the roots of the tree and the living wall. Elizabeth had run past him in the shadow of the tree, tucked away in the dark. The small boy smiled to himself and he waited. 

"I never found you that day."

Ciel shook his head. "No. Aunt Ann did."

Some time later, young Ciel had heard sobs and the sounds of skirts brushing over the lush carpeted ground. Elizabeth was mumbling something about having lost him. Aunt Ann - Madame Red as he would later come to call her - was lead by the hand to the last place Lizzie had seen Ciel. The boy in the reflection smiled to himself, and Ciel remembered being thrilled they had come to look for him a second time. His aunt's sparkling eyes peeked over the hump of the large root and looked down upon him. She reached out a gloved hand and poked him in the stomach, drawing forth a giggle in return. He could laugh back then, Ciel suddenly remembered. Why did the sound seem to hurt so much? Elizabeth had taken his hand, and the three of them returned to Rachael Phantomhive and the picnic laid at her feet. 

Ciel's father had come along soon after, arm in arm with Frances. Vincent chatted amicably with Alexis and patted his sister's hand as he came to join his family in the grass. Ciel didn't want to look anymore, not really. His eyes remained glued to the images despite his conscious thoughts. He had once sworn not to look on the faces of his dead parents again. This was so much easier than last time, when they weren't spouting their nonsense at him. On the other hand. he reasoned, they still were. Elizabeth rested her small hand on her uncle's knee and with puffed-up cheeks complained how Ciel had hidden from her. He rested a hand on her mop of blonde curls and handed her a biscuit. He turned bright eyes on his small son. Ciel stared at the reflection and grimaced. One hand unconsciously pawing at the shirt over his chest as his memories resurfaced just ahead of the images. 

"Now, Ciel, you mustn't hide from your responsibilities. A gentleman, a Phantomhive, does not do that. Elizabeth will be your responsibility one day. Do you understand?"

Wide blue eyes stared up at Vincent, and young Ciel nodded his head. Ciel nodded his head also. Behind him, Ash grinned smugly. Ciel had learned not to run, and not to hide. He may have been a boy, a young man of little temper, but he had patience. He dragged his eyes upward and let them rest on Elizabeth's face as she continued to kneel across from him. "I never hid from you after that."

"No. That is true. I think you take pains to avoid me sometimes, though." Her eyes dropped slowly and she stared at the hard floor which had become a swirling mass of grey again. 

"I do not," he lied. Lies were so very easy for Ciel. "I am very busy."

The girl looked at him hard. "You are running out of time, you know. It goes by in the blink of an eye."

The young earl huffed in annoyance. "You keep saying that. Explain," he demanded.

That laughter came again. Ciel felt his shoulders rise to his ears with the grating sound. Ash leaned lowly over his shoulder again and rested a hand on Ciel's back. "Time is so fleeting. You have choices to make, as I told you. Do not fret, though. The hard decision has already been made as you were incapable of doing so yourself." The phantom of Ash patted his right cheek and Ciel jerked his head away and glared at the reflection of the white butler smiling indulgently behind him.

Still not entirely sure what was being hinted at, Ciel pursed his lips and then asked, "How much time?"

"That is the question isn't it? How do you judge something as relative as time?"

"Usually in minutes or hours..." Ciel quipped back, not hiding the sarcasm in his voice.

"Quite. Hours maybe? Days? ... _Seconds_?" Ash's lips curled into the facsimile of a smirk at Ciel's obvious frustration. Ciel couldn't help but note how absolutely sour it looked on the man's porcelain face. "Minutes? Ah, yes. That would probably be easiest for you. Thirty minutes from the time you arrived. Make up your mind soon, young Earl."

"In order for one to make a decision, there needs to be a choice," Ciel sneered, having grown tired of Ash's presence and the surprisingly stifling nature of such a vast expanse of nothing.


	3. Hell is Cold and Dark

"In the end, there is only once choice. You were incapable of making the correct choice back then. I have eliminated that problem for you." Ash's breath curled around the shell of Ciel's ear.

"Keep. Your. Distance." Ciel spat the words out. His hands were curled into the material of his short trousers, desperately wrinkling the material between his fingers with rage. 

"I will show you the error in your ways, the pain your naivete has brought you. You will thank me, Master Phantomhive." The white butler, looming oppressively behind Ciel, curled his hand around the base of the boy's neck and forced his gaze downward. 

"I will not humor this lunacy any further. Let me up this INSTANT." Ciel struggled against the grip, but found he was no match for the strength in those incorporeal arms. 

"Oh, I think you will."

At first, Ciel saw nothing. He merely stared at his own reflection in the polished floor. After a few moments he realized the tile was almost too black. He could peer too deeply into the nothingness. It was too empty and there was a clenching in his stomach. Ciel's skin prickled in goose flesh as his subconscious was reacting to something he himself did not yet understand. Shapes began to form in the dark. Ciel felt a breath hitch in his throat as his eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. 

No. He did not want this memory. He relived it far too often in the recesses of his mind while he slept. There was perhaps no memory he would like less to experience in the waking world than this one. The sounds came to him before the images did. Just like when he dreamed. 

There were other children besides himself stuffed in the cage with him. Several other cages like his were spaced a short distance apart in the dark stone room. It was never fully quiet. Never could one let their imagination lead them to believe that maybe they would wake up safe and sound at home. No, more often than not there was crying, sniffling, coughing, the sound of chains rattling together and Ciel noted whispered prayers between chapped and bleeding lips. 

It had only been days. The boy had not yet learned not to beg and plead when robed captors entered the room. Men - at least he had assumed they were men at first - swept into the darkened cell full of chattel. The children pressed themselves against the bars and pleaded to be let free, begged for their mothers, and cried piteously when they were neither spoken to nor acknowledged. 

Something had entered into the room with the masked and robed captor. A shadow loomed behind him, darkening the man's right shoulder. It was nearly imperceptible from the _normal_ shadows hugging the walls and corners. The small boy with tear-streaked cheeks and wide blue eyes did not see the shadow amongst shadows. Ciel, kneeling beneath Ash's firm grip and staring harshly at the scene, did see. His expression pinched and his teeth clenched together. 

"I do not remember that."

"You were too innocent yet. There was much you did not see."

It began that night. The shadow had little form other than being a separate _thing_ that followed the robed man. It stayed close to his shoulder and part of itself draped about the man's neck. The man pulled a key from deep within the sleeve of his robe. He stopped in front of one of the cages, the one next to young Ciel's. The children within the other cages pushed themselves upon each other as they pushed against the bars, willing themselves to slip through, or perhaps materialize inside the cage the man stood in front of. 

The door was unlocked and the looming shadow slithered into the cage amongst the children. The robed man slid his hood back and the young boy who still had both his eyes recoiled with a start. The man's face was obscured with a mask that looked more than frightful in the shadows and the doorway of the cramped prison. The shadow flowed back out of the cage and once again hovered behind the masked figure. He reached a meaty hand into the cage and grabbed hold of the wrist of a small brunette girl. He squeezed her small wrist vigorously and the child began to cry in earnest with fear now etched on her face. She was roughly pulled from the cage, and the door slammed shut and locked. 

Instinct was a strong thing indeed. Young Ciel had pushed his way through the mass of simpering children, away from this scene. His stomach tightened, watching the large rough hand grab the girl's chin. Ciel remembered how dirty the fingernails of that hand were as it roughly twisted the girl's head from one side to the other, and how his thumb had slid down her neck and under the collar of her sullied dress. Every fiber in his being told him to hush and to hide. 

The robed man swallowed both of the girl's small hands in his large one. He suspended her off the ground by her hands, carrying her out in front of him like some prized game bird. The man never spoke, but the boy remembered the smell the masked figure brought with him. The sharp smell of alcohol burned his nose along with something sweet he couldn't place and the pungent scent of wood smoke. Young Ciel watched his back recede in the darkness, his manacled hands clenched together to keep them from trembling too much. The young boy didn't see. From above him, Ciel watched the captor swinging the small girl about and slapping at her swinging legs with his free hand. Behind him, the shadow paused. For a moment it detached itself from the bastard and for the briefest second, Ciel thought he saw two tiny points of red light directed at the small boy. 

There was a large door separating the cells from whatever lay beyond. It probably would have deadened the sounds emanating from the adjacent room. It looked heavy, sturdy and thick. Yes, it certainly would have stopped the sounds from reaching young Ciel's ears, if the robed figure had managed to close the door. 

The screaming started soon after. The small boy sank down the bars and pulled his knees to his chest. His small hands wrapped around his shins and he pressed his forehead against his knees. The girls screams and wracking sobs crashed through the stone room like a tidal wave, and soon the other children were swept up in the fear and the grief. The cages rattled with panicked bodies sobbing against one another. Young Ciel refused to cry. He only wanted to block those sounds out. He wanted to be able to force from his existence the _other_ sounds that slithered through the crack in the door. The chanting seemed to vibrate the very air around him. It brushed against his ears like hot, unwanted whispers and simultaneously stole the heat from his body, making him shiver. 

Ciel closed his eyes momentarily against the onslaught of memories. That was the unforgiving thing about memories, though. Even when you closed your eyes, they still played on and you did not have the option of looking away. His hand clutched at his ear where Ash's whispers grated on his nerves and behind his eyes, his younger self mimicked his action against the voices of adults he could not see and knew he would never be able to stomach. It would get worse. Much, much worse. 

How much time had passed? The small boy wasn't sure. He only slept when his body could not hold out any longer. There was no light here save for flickering candles when the men - and occasional woman, Ciel learned - came to choose one of them. The little brunette girl had not returned. The ginger-haired boy they took after her did. He had yet to wake up, though. He was returned to the cage bleeding and bruised and the other children crowded away from him as if his injuries might be contagious. Who knew? Maybe they were. A group of the monsters had come. The boy had decided this was an apt name for them. His mind could come up with no better moniker for people who caged small children and made them scream until the screams turned to hoarse coughs and then whispers and then nothing at all as the chanting overtook them. 

The monsters came. They came to the cage that Ciel occupied. The other children had learned now not to crowd the door. No longer were they pressing themselves at their captors and trying to win their way out from behind the bars. Young Ciel sat with his back against the bars of the cage, his head bowed. The shadow seemed to be darker still now. The young boy still did not see it, did not feel it slither into the cage with him and hover intently in front of him. He didn't see the monsters carefully peer over each child until they reached him, when the the shadow curled around the boy and two tiny points of light bore into him. That was the first night he was pulled from the cage. He refused to scream, a forced grunt left his lips as he was pulled from the cage. 

The small boy squeezed his eyes shut and tried to shrink into himself as one of the men gripped his wrists painfully above his head. A second grabbed his chin roughly as he had seen done before and twisted his head this way and that. Meaty hands ran down the length of his arms and over his small chest before wrapping around his hips. The monsters laughed. It was deep and grating and made his heart feel dead in his chest. 

Outside of the cold hell where a small boy dangled in the grip of monsters, an older boy struggled against steadfast hands gloved in white. Ciel's knees dug into the cold, white marble. He didn't scream as the men grabbed his younger self, but a pained sound left his mouth, brought up from somewhere deep in his chest as all of the air forced itself out, tortured and uneven. His brows furrowed and he felt he couldn't inhale properly. Ash clicked his tongue from behind his right shoulder and his hands held Ciel firmly in place. "A shame he singled you out..."

Ciel was only aware of the white butler's voice as a distant irritant. His eyes were on the door. _That door_ that separated the screams from the darkness, and from whence children did not always return. The young boy kicked his legs as he was carried forth. A smaller hand, with surprisingly strong fingers, grabbed his ankle. The hands were softer, but no more gentle than the meaty paws. The female monster captured his legs and helped drag him through the doorway. There were so many of them. This was the creatures' lair. Masked faces leered at him from beneath hooded robes. The room was brighter, even the dancing firelight was more than his eyes were used to. He had become accustomed to the dark. Hell was dark and it was cold. This room was hot and his eyes watered as he tried to look everywhere and nowhere at the same time. In the center of the undulating cretins was a table of stone. The boy was carried to the table and shoved roughly against it. His soft stomach collided with the hard edge and a squeak forced itself from between his dry lips. 

Laughter. The small sound had drawn their attention. The beasts crowded closer as if he were some piece of meat that had just fallen before them and the feeding frenzy were about to start. Across the table of stone, the female with harpy hands grabbed his wrists forcefully and pulled him to lean across the table's surface. Someone kicked his ankles sharply and he stumbled. Unable to fall because of the grip on his arms, he hung against the stone with the mere tips of his shoes touching the ground. A rough hand yanked his shirt up to his neck. His skin crawled with fear at the sudden exposure and the pain of fingernails that scraped the skin of his back with the motion. 

It was to be his first lesson in pain. The blows came hard and fast. The small boy didn't know what was hitting him. He thought it was hands at first, slapping at his pale skin. He gritted his teeth and refused to call out. The boy squeezed his eyes shut and tried to be anywhere else but stretched on a table with the hands of monsters crawling over him. The blows came again, stiff and hard. A ruler, maybe? The quick, unyielding hits stung and added to the burning of his flesh from the earlier assault. The leather strap that followed was so much worse. It curled around his sides and licked at his back. Tears began to leak from beneath the boy's squeezed lids and he felt something warm trickling down his back and into the band of his short trousers. His small body tried to tense against the blows, to foolishly protect itself, but he could find no leverage to do so. Young Ciel's hair clung to his face with sweat and his small teeth sunk into his lip, the coppery taste of his own blood now filling his mouth. 

Ciel stared at his small self with such burning hatred sparking through his eyes. He couldn't change this. Logically he knew that. Still, his eyes darted among the monsters trying to will his smaller self to escape with the force of his hatred and with the bitter, slimy taste of his shame. He stilled for a moment, and Ash's reflection smiled, showing perfect straight teeth. Ciel's eyes fell on the masked brute swinging a long leather strap through the air. He remembered the sicking whistle of air before each blow, and the dark chuckles that would follow from the onlookers. This was new. The shadow, darker and more defined in the flickering illumination wrapped itself around the man's whipping arm. It moved with the man, and as it did so, the blows grew harder and more precise, striking the same patch of welted bleeding flesh over and over again. The shadow prodded the captor, and while the man never seemed to acknowledge actually being touched, he adjusted his body anyway, and a new onslaught began. 

The new flurry of blows were too much, too precise. The boys legs gave out completely and he hung by his wrists as the monster in front of him licked her own lips and stared at the blood leaking from his mouth. He didn't cry out. Not that night. They managed to draw pained whimpers from him by the end, and the shadow, Ciel noted, turned red glowing lights onto the bleeding child. 

"I... You bastard." Ciel shifted his head to the side, knowing he still wouldn't see Ash behind him.

Ash laughed and patted Ciel on the cheek. "I? I am the bastard? Maybe if you accept the truth, you will finally move on from this debacle."

Ciel scoffed and he narrowed his eyes, not wanting to give away just how confused he was feeling. "I should expect the truth from _you_?"

"Still in denial, hmm? Very well, let us see how much abuse your poor body could take. He certainly enjoyed making sure you got all the attention you could handle."


	4. The Devil is in the Details

"He did what?" Ciel's voice was cold and sharp and his muscles tensed beneath Ash's iron-like grip. His gut felt heavy and bile rose in his throat, and the memories attacked him once more. 

The small boy's battered body lay on the filth of the cage floor. They had dropped him on his stomach when they had finished 'teaching' him. He lacked the strength to roll himself over. Another lesson failed. This time, this beating, had been worse than the ones before it. The boy's eyes fluttered as he tried to remain conscious. Sleep would be a luxury, would allow him to escape this pain, if only for a little while. In sleep though, he would relive all the days before this one all over again, and he just didn't feel his sanity would last through that one more time. In sleep, he would be unaware when they came for him again. Young Ciel had learnt to sleep lightly with his head against the bars so he would be jarred awake when they opened the cell door. The few times he had been taken by surprise, he had nearly screamed. 

The cold floor felt almost soothing on his bruised cheek. Were it not for the fact the battered flesh and the bones beneath were painfully pressed against the stone, and the odors assaulted him so violently, he might almost have been able to take some comfort. This was hell. Hell was cold and dark. Through that door was something worse than hell. Through that door that never seemed to fully close when Ciel was at his most fragile, was something hot and torturous and worse than oblivion. Beyond that door, the boy reasoned, were monsters, the worst of humanity. He tried to roll himself over once more. His small hand pushed on the stones, his two broken fingers screamed at the effort and he clamped his lips against the sound as it tried to escape. Blue eyes flew open with the stabbing, splitting pain in his side as he rolled. One of the monsters had kicked him fiercely and over the sound of his hideously forced exhale, the boy thought he had heard something crack. He wondered how many ribs were broken or fractured. 

The cages were much roomier now. Many of the other children had passed through the door and after days - Days? Nights? He didn't know - of screaming, and chanting, and noises the boy didn't quite have a name for yet, fewer and fewer returned. The torment never abated though, those who remained were simply 'schooled' more often. The boy refused to talk to the other children; they were all of them below him. He did not scream. He failed his lessons over and over and he did it on purpose. 

"Teach the little noble beast to scream. Teach him that we will have what we wish."

So much had been stripped from the boy. How could one person lose so much? These were the thoughts that sometimes plagued him when the torn flesh on his body weeped and burned and kept him from gaining respite. His parents were taken from him. The conflagration that stole his home also allowed for his freedom to be stolen. Grabbed from the shadows of the burning manor, he found himself here in this cold and dark hell. Any sense of control over his situation had been thoroughly trounced as he quickly came to learn that visits from the monsters and the attacks that followed would come at any time and if you were chosen, there was simply no escape. Hands on his body, whips, booted feet, he had come to know them all and the hatred for it coursed through the small body keeping his heart pumping. After the first time, when he had refused to scream, he had been dumped in his cell and shivered as hot blood seeped down his back, sticking his shirt to his skin. He huddled himself against his knees and tried to will out the sound of the children around him shifting and wailing, and the pain he didn't know how to deal with. 

'I am still a Phantomhive. Monsters will not make me scream. I am not afraid of monsters...'

The small boy told himself this same thing over and over all through the dark days and nights as they bled together. He told himself this very same thing as they raked his body with their grimy nails and bloody floggers. He told himself this again and again as he chewed his lips raw in an effort to keep the sounds inside himself. When his lips threatened to give out under the abuse of his gnashing teeth, he turned to his tongue. The boy felt blood pooling in his mouth as he lay on his back. He let his head fall to the side, hair sticking to his brow, and opened his mouth. Blood dribbled down the side of cheek and his eyes rested on the door. It was closed. Perhaps there would be time for him to rest, if only for a little while. 

The boy didn't see, but Ciel did. Floating through the door came a long patch of darkness that seemed to make the black around it pale to gray in comparison. It had eyes now at all times. Small specks of red light that pierced the gloom, and despite the fiery color, did nothing to warm the air around them. The shadow flitted between the cages, peering into each one. It was a large misty mass, taller than the largest of the monsters. It spent but a few moments at each cell until it reached the last one where young Ciel lay, flat and broken, with his head leaning against the bars. A misty appendage stretched into the cage, and slithered along the boy's right cheek. Ciel, looking down into his reflection, shivered violently and pulled his head away from the touch that he could not truly feel. The small boy never moved, and Ciel watching from above with hardened eyes fought down his revulsion. The dark figured stayed there for a minute or more, than entered the cage fully and hovered over the boy. After a time, it floated back from the room, and the door cracked open. Ciel swallowed thickly. 

There were things worse than beatings; worse than being left on a filth covered stone floor battered and bleeding. There was a pain more searing than broken ribs and fingers, and infected, seeping wrists that had been manacled for too long. There was more to lose than the boy had imagined. There were places in his young brain where the cracks were forming, small at first and branching out in spidery lines like so much glass under a fist. 

'I am a Phantomhive. I will not scream. I am not afraid of Monsters...'

He was afraid, though. He leaned his back against the cold metal with his eyes closed and he tried to imagine escaping. His mind would not humor him. There was no escaping hell. Hell was eternal. Damnation was eternal. The boy repeated his mantra, his shield against the tortures, and he felt the cracks in his psyche spread down his spine. What if he were to simply let go? Would he shatter? Would he just fall apart at the seams like a rag doll and rest in pieces on the cell floor? The door to his cell rattled open and his eyes flew open. What adrenaline his body could still produce began pumping through his veins and a meaty paw caught the chain connecting his manacled wrists to yank him from the cage, dragging his form across the floor. 

A small group had come to collect him. The boy had long since lost the resolve to kick and struggle when they hoisted him up for inspection. He needed his strength to maintain what little resolve he had left. He funneled all his efforts into keeping himself as quiet as possible. It seemed to agitate the monsters and as they never attained what they wanted, he always made it back through that door and into the cell. It could have been a survival tactic, but the boy was more concerned with the fact he had one thing they could not take from him. Pride comes before the fall as the saying goes, and Ciel clenched his fists so tightly his nails drew blood from crescent moon-shaped wounds in his palms. He watched, helpless to stop the events that were about to take place, unable to stop the images from coming, and unsure of what role the familiar shadow played in it all. 

When the boy was sat upon the stone table instead of spread against it, a fresh wave of panic washed over him. The room was unbearably warm and a pungent smell hung in the air. He tried not to look into the faces of the monsters, but on occasion he couldn't help it. The leer that pierced him sent him reeling backwards and his small feet kicked against the stone. The harpy was behind him again though, and she forced his manacled wrists together, holding them against the table. Then, young Ciel learned, he had a lot more to lose. 

He didn't know how long this particular 'lesson' lasted. His mind dulled to the roving hands with dirty nails and calloused fingers. He chanted in his head, keeping his pride alive and the splinters of his psyche from piercing the skull. When the fingers stripped him bare and exposed him fully to the den of monsters, he chewed his lips, breaking skin and tasting blood. When he learned what the weight of another full grown beast felt like atop him, he practically swallowed his tongue with revulsion as he bit the thick muscle. His eyes squeezed shut, willing himself to be anywhere else. Hell was better than this. The boy learnt his body could be bent and broken by the most unassuming looking of appendages, and the damage was more, so much more than that done with leather strips and booted feet. The monsters still craved his screams. They kicked, and slapped, they pried and rode and the chanting that slowly continued to shave away at his strength became laced even more heavily with the sound that had no name. Now though, the boy knew what it was. He would call it grunting, he would call it disgusting, he would call it the rutting of monsters. Around the stone table in this place worse than hell, the dregs of this pit of despair violated each other in tandem with his tortured form. 

The number of children who returned from the dark wooden door dwindled. From his vantage point, Ciel, noticed with increasing ire the shadow grew longer and more defined with each child who never returned. Was the shadow born from the darkness of hell? Were the children feeding its form as they failed to return? He was having trouble organizing his thoughts. Ciel had fallen into his memory despite the blood trickling from his palm, and the ghost of the pain wracked his body while the force of his humiliation brutally bludgeoned his pride, shattering it. Ash's eyes remained impassive with his lips resting in an easy smile. 

In the times that followed, the robed and masked tormentors resorted to different techniques. Ciel remembered this 'lesson'. He leaned further over the reflection as his breath caught in his throat. Ash's hand pushed against his neck, not letting him sit straight. 

"He has always been a dedicated instructor, you see..."

Ciel did not want to see. Unfortunately, the young Earl had no control over these images. His eyes left the boy who was being stripped and roughly flipped onto his stomach. Around him, the monsters disrobed each other and the air grew heavy with the heat of the room and the stench of beasts and warm booze. One of the tallest of the monsters stood a little apart from the group. Over his shoulder, the shadow loomed and Ciel watched it dip its misty head towards the monster's ear. The robed man took a willow cane into his hand, and the shadow dipped its head again. The monster didn't react outwardly, but put the cane down and picked up the leather strap. The darkness curled a hand over the monster's shoulder and the robed man began to laugh, a high, screeching laugh. He dropped the strap on the table and picked up a small wedge of wood. 

"You... You bastard." Ciel's words slipped out as a whisper. He whipped his head to his smaller self. 

The small boy had been slapped and pinched and his bare skin, crisscrossed with bleeding wounds and blue and green welts, was slick with sweat already. His bottom lip bubbled with fresh blood as he bit it to a pulp. That was then the monster came to face him. His small jaw was forced open and the foulest of fingers were forced into his mouth. They probed his bloodied teeth and abused tongue. A violent push had the boy retching against the assault. Nothing much empties from a stomach barely fed, though, and his dry heaving drew laughter and rancid breath from the beasts around him. The beast shoved the small wedges of wood between his teeth and with horror the boy found he could not close his mouth. His brittle hold over himself shattered and he kicked with his bare feet and tried to free his hands from where they were wrenched behind his back. 

The monster held out his hand, and the harpy placed the willow cane in his meaty paw. The whistling the thing made as it sliced through the air before slicing through his flesh could even be heard over the filthy beasts writhing across each other in fire-lit corners of the room. His eyes opened wide and he hissed deep in his throat. One? Two? Five? He lost count at his legs were assaulted, the blood dripping down pale calves and tiny ankles. The boy coughed, he wheezed, he squeezed tears out from puffy eyelids. He groaned as he was tossed onto his bruised back and taken. Rather than dulling itself to try and block what he could of the pain, his brain examined every hurt, every tear and scrape and bruised slam against the stone - anything to keep himself from screaming. The misty shadow left the shoulder of the tallest monster and floated above the boy as his body was used and abused. When the boy's hair was gripped painfully hard and his head forced up so the beast could run a dirtied finger over his tongue, his eyes cracked open. Peering out of the darkness that should not have been able to exist in the fires of this hot pit were two ruby-red eyes. The young boy's eyes widened for a moment in surprise and confusion. He almost called out to those eyes, and then they were gone, blinking out of his vision. And the boy wished for hell. 

"You fucking bastard. You damn fucking bastard!" Ciel screamed at the vision before him and for a brief moment, Ash thought he might have detected a cracking in Master Phantomhive's voice. 

"Starting to see the error of your ways?"

Ciel did not acknowledge the white butler. It was possible he never even heard him. 

'I-I'm...a Phantomhive... There are monsters... I will not scream. I...will not scream.'

Everything hurt. Everything. His body hurt when he sat himself down, when he tried to lie on the stones, when he curled into himself, when his raw wrists moved, when broken fingers and toes bent, when he inhaled too deeply, when he didn't inhale at all. His splintered mind hurt as his existence defied reason. The fragile glass shards of his thoughts had long since shattered and danced out of his reach, shredding things like hope, faith, comfort, and peace in their wake. How much pain was worth it, he wondered again as he spit blood onto the back of his hand with a cough. He had been called a stubborn boy on occasion. His father had once remarked that trait would serve him well when he was older. The boy wondered if it was serving him well now. He had but one thing to keep to himself. Hell was for sinners,wasn't it? Pride was a sin. He didn't much care. Hell was better than what lay beyond the door and that was all his subsistence was now - Hell and what lie beyond. 

He never managed to roll himself against the bars. When they came for him, his unconscious form had no warning. The numbness that enveloped him and protected him for a short time from the heat and punishment beyond the door betrayed him. It kept him wrapped in dark arms as his form was hoisted from the cage and carried from the dark and cold prison. 

He awoke to a sharp slap across the face. His head rocked and the force slammed his cheek into the stone beneath his head. He gasped and reflexively tried to bring his hand to his cheek. He felt grubby hands holding his wrists firmly above his head and he tried to kick his feet. There was no success in his struggling. Stripped to his skin, he was spread and bound to the table. He clamped his mouth closed as the panic fluttered up through his chest, painfully reminding him that his heart could still beat fiercely when the fear took hold. The den of monsters was brighter than usual, an orange luminescence emanating from the entire right side of the room. The heat he found to be unbearable was now nearly driving him mad. He felt sweat sliding down the side of his face and the stone growing slick beneath his bony back. 

The monsters looked hungry. Their eyes glittered like dead beetles and they crowded around the table on three sides. The largest of the beasts was the only one to stand on the side of the table with the raging fire. He loomed over the boy's form and his masked face dipped to stare into the boy's face. Young Ciel hated the look he was forced to receive, a hungry, predatory look. The monster trailed a rough finger over the boy's mangled lips. 

"The little noble beast has lasted a long time. Time is short. Let us forever brand him with the mark he so deserves. The mark of the noble beast."

The words made little sense to Ciel as he was stretched on the table. As the robed beast crawled himself off of the boy, he saw movement over the monster's shoulder. An oppressive shadow draped across the back of the boy's tormentor. 

It was not until the beast approached him with a blazing fiery brand that the words knitted themselves together in his fragile brain. _'Let us forever brand him with the mark he so deserves.'_ He would be forever branded? His body twisted with all the strength he had left. His eyes burned with the force of how wide they opened as panic fully enveloped the young earl. He would not be able to leave. He would not be able to go back to his cold, dark hell and hold his fragile form together with one thread he had left. This would not heal. This would not turn purple and then green and then slowly fade back to flesh before they bruised and pulped him again. This would not knit itself back together given enough time. This mark was going to be etched in his skin forever. It would be a constant reminder of the inhuman ends that he had suffered. Never would he be allowed to move past this. Hell was dark and it was cold, but a fiery brand would still burn brightly against the boy's pale skin and his pride would never recover. There was a shattering inside of him. The thread that linked the remainder of his poor mind together with his body snapped and he felt his lungs constrict as the burning metal was pushed into his flesh. The boy screamed and he screamed until there was no breath in his body to fuel them any longer and his voice would allow only scratchy hisses to escape. A large black mass sat on the edge of the table, and the ruby eyes danced as the mists split into a languid smile.

When the beasts dumped him on his back into his cold, dark hell, the boy realized he was alone. There was no one left. He was the last. They had taken the last of him. He had nothing left. He was nothing, a shell bereft of anything once resembling a boy named Ciel Phantomhive.

The next time the boy lay on the table was to be the last time. This time his poor broken body housed an equally broken spirit. The only thing young Ciel could find inside of himself was pain and hatred. He felt if his pain could somehow animate his body, and his hatred give strength to his muscles, he would dearly love to destroy everyone in this room. Every beast that existed the world over. Every filthy creature who had a hand in stripping him of absolutely everything. The pain of being sliced asunder with the ritual knife didn't compare to the pain and the humiliation he had already been wracked with. He felt the blood pour out over his abdomen. He imagined his hatred pouring out of him to darken the room that was too bright for him. 

The lights had gone dim then, and a dark voice as smooth as velvet and sharp as a knife had spoken in the darkness. It spoke to him as a man, promised a way to reclaim his pride, to attain revenge, afforded him the respect he would come to demand from everyone. All it asked was the only thing he had left to give. How much could one person lose? Young Ciel didn't need but a moment to make this decision. 

"Don't be tedious. Form a contract with me and carry out my orders." There was strength in his strangled voice and the shadow smiled and took the form of a man.

Ciel watched from afar as the devil danced through the den of beasts and drenched the walls in blood. He looked at his smaller form with anger and pity in his eyes.

"Now, now; do not be so hard on yourself. You were but a naive child. You simply called to the wrong person to help you."

"Do NOT speak to me," Ciel barked at the white butler over his shoulder. "Do not DARE speak to me."

Ash sighed as if he was tired of trying to get a very slow boy to grasp an obvious concept. "You do see, do you not? The entirety of it was his doing."

Ciel shook his head as he vibrated with rage. "Sebastian would not..."

Ash cut him off quickly. "No, not Sebastian. He was not Sebastian then. He was just a devil cultivating a _plaything_. Something he would use for his amusement."

Ciel's eyes flashed and settled on Ash's reflection.

"Ah. You understand now, don't you? They didn't summon a devil. They merely appeased one. Your own personal hell, specially selected and crafted just for you."

"No! My...my plans have always..."

"Young Master Phantomhive... It only takes one moment to make a plan, or a mistake."


	5. Whispers and Shackles

"I do not regret the decisions I make." The words were strong, but they wavered slightly and Ciel hated the way Ash smirked at him. 

"Is that so?"

Moonlight. Pallid streams of light slinked across the floor through the gap in the rich curtains. It stretched across the rich carpet and onto the young lord's bed to illuminate his face. In this light, his skin seemed even paler, and to almost glow on it's own. His expression was drawn and his fists clenched tightly in sleep. The searing pain in his sleeping mind forced a hollow cry from his lips as he woke violently and sat starkly up in his bed. Only when his hand shook slightly did he realize he was brandishing his revolver at the darkness. He pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms about them. He rested his head against his arm, his revolver resting against his shin. "Sebastian..." he breathed into the material of his night shirt.

"My Lord?" Sebastian's voice cut through the darkness and startled the boy. He jerked both his head and his gun towards the man and took several quick breathes. 

"What are you doing here?"

"I am a servant of the Phantomhives. If I could not anticipate my master's needs, what sort of butler would I be?"

Ciel lowered his weapon and rested it against his leg once more. His shoulders sagged softly and he turned his face away from the man who was little more than a dark shadow in his chamber. "Nightmares..." was all he could say.

"Yes." Sebastian's clothes rustled slightly as he moved, the only indication of him traversing the space between himself and the bed. "Would you like me to prepare you some milk, Young Master? I can add honey, or perhaps brandy."

Ciel, crouched on the stone floor, turned flashing eyes on the empty space Ash seemed to occupy. "DON'T YOU DARE. You have no right to this memory."

The man smiled sickeningly sweet. "Oh? What makes you think I got this one from you, hmm? Did you not question your _loyal_ servant when he finally rejoined your side after abandoning you?

"He wouldn't..."

"The devil would."

Ciel's stomach turned over on itself. He had not questioned Sebastian. Was that his mistake?

The boy dressed in a white night shirt nodded his head. "Yes, that is a good idea." As his servant bowed and turned to leave, Ciel found the thought of being alone was not appealing. "Wait..."

Sebastian stopped and turned slowly to face his master. Ciel could still see his red eyes glowing in the gloom and somehow, that was comforting. "I've changed my mind," the boy said. With a tilt of his head the man returned to Ciel's bed side.

"Would you prefer something else, sir?"

"No. I'm fine," he lied. Ciel, at this moment, was anything but fine. His nightmares were always dark and fierce and involved being ripped from somewhere hellish and tossed into something abhorrent where there were true monsters to feed on the most intimate parts of him. Tonight he relived the breaking of his body and the permanent reminder of the shame and slights to his pride that he would never be able to move past.

"Perhaps young master would like to go back to sleep, then?" Sebastian held his hand out towards Ciel's, still clutching the revolver. The boy looked at the cold weapon in his hand, and then to the enigmatic weapon standing at his bedside. He handed the revolver over and heard Sebastian place it on the night stand. His butler re-fluffed the pillow and then stood to leave. 

This was too much. Ash was too close, and this was not something he wanted to revisit in the cretin's presence. His whole body tensed watching his own interactions with the demon at his bed side. Ash's lips parted and his lavender eyes danced.

"How often has the beast stood in the darkness watching his prey sleep, hmm?"

Sebastian could not possibly use these moments where he was his most vulnerable to gloat over his future kill. Would he? Ciel hadn't questioned it before. He had never had a reason to question why Sebastian was always there within a moment of being called. He was not sure which made him feel more vile; doubting himself, doubting Sebastian, or having Ash be the cause of it all. He closed himself to the stifling presence behind him and turned his attention back to the darkened bed chamber. 

Ciel lay back on the pillows and turned onto his side. His blue eyes stared into the dark and he listened to the sound of Sebastian's coat tails as the man walked away. "Stay with me," he whispered through the darkness. 

"Oh? Master's nightmares have effected him deeply tonight?" Ciel huffed at the mocking tone. 

"Just do as you're told."

"Certainly, Sir."

Ciel slipped back into uneasy dreams. He forced his eyes open as a hand was gently shaking him. When he took a sharp breath and tried to bat at the hand as he sat up, it gripped his shoulder firmly. "It's alright, master."

"Sebastian?" 

"Nightmares. I thought I should wake you."

Ciel dropped back into the pillow and turned his eyes onto the butler standing at the side of his bed. The boy bit his bottom lip as a multitude of things coursed through his mind. Sebastian tilted his head to the side and when the boy grabbed his pillow and shuffled himself to the side of the bed away from Sebastian, the man curled a finger against his mouth to hide his smirk. "Stay with me."

"I had not intended to leave you-"

"Just get in the bed," Ciel cut the man off and frowned impatiently.

Sebastian waited a heartbeat before slipping out of his shoes and settling himself against the headboard next to Ciel. "As you wish, sir."

The thing behind Ciel actually laughed watching the boy on the floor squirm as the memory played on. "How fortunate for the devil to have you invite your death to bed with you. Have you no shame, little Phantomhive? Your _butler?_ A demon?"

Ciel's face flushed from embarrassment and a rage he couldn't quite put into words. His chest tightened as he both wanted to push the night to the furthest reaches of his mind, yet he couldn't quite tear his eyes away. 

"You will protect me even at the cost of your own life."

"Yes."

"You are mine."

"Yes."

"I don't want to have nightmares again tonight."

"Oh? You think I can prevent this?" 

"Can't you? Aren't you one hell of a butler?" Ciel stared into Sebastian's face. The man seemed thoughtful, almost pensive. "Just for one night."

"You fear what was done to you. You fear it has stripped you of your pride in a way you will never be able to recover from." Sebastian's voice was a whisper in the darkness, silk slipping over itself. 

Ciel remained silent with his hands tightly fisting his pillow.

A white-gloved hand wrapped around the boy's fist and ever so slowly worked it free. When the tension had finally left the boy's arm, his whole self was pulled into the man's lap. Deft hands worked small, white buttons and those eyes burning softly in the pitch stared into cautious blue ones. Skin was revealed slowly, and soft murmurs passed back and forth. The boy questioned, 'Why'? When his question drew pause from the older man, and was gently answered with 'You wish for pleasant dreams for one night', he felt his unease fade. Ciel was silently thankful he had a voice that was not torn from his throat bleeding, and that it was heard. Tentative hands reached through the darkness and tugged on white cotton, revealing hands smooth and pale. 

Pale fingers traced over small collar bones and the curve of a young man's jawline. Ciel shivered with the sensation and timidly fumbled with silk and wool in turn. Gentle touches would meld into the impossibly soft sensation of lips pressed to skin. Clothing was discarded and forgotten as the darkness warmed between them. The sensation of silken hair brushing against his abdomen drew soft breathes from Ciel and he would forever deny such a sound could come from him. Bodies glowed in the scant moonlight with a light sheen of sweat. There was a moment when Ciel panicked, but he found comfort and safety in strong arms and long languid fingers. He found something that had once broken him beyond redemption could also be fulfilling and pleasurable. When his cheeks flamed and his body arched, Sebastian had traced his shame, the mark seared into his flesh, with his tongue and the boy had called the demon's name into the dark. 

Ash tightened a hand around Ciel's shoulder and the boy nearly jumped off the floor. Well, he might have done, if the hand weren't still firmly anchoring him in place. "You continue to be taken advantage of. He feeds on your naivety and your weakness. It isn't your fault. He is a convincing tempter. That is what _they_ do, you know. He preyed on your weakness to claim your soul. Now he used that same weakness to take everything else he wanted from you. You have nothing left to lose to the beast, do you?" Ash leaned down into the boy's ear. "He is rather proud of his conquest. I guess that could fuel your riddled and deflated pride. He told the story in such detail."

"Monster..." the boy on the floor whispered through clenched teeth. 

Sebastian's breath shifted the boy's sweaty hair and it brushed against his chest. Ciel was curled against the older man, his back to Sebastian chest, while his butler sat propped against his pillows. He was holding the man's hand in the sliver of moonlight. Ciel watched how the evening glow turned Sebastian's already pale skin nearly silvery. His eyes, though, were drawn to the pentagram etched into the back of Sebastian's left hand. He traced each line with his eyes and reached a hand up to gently brush over the lid of his right eye. "It's like a shackle, you know..."

"Master is astute." Sebastian's voice held humor and Ciel imagined him smirking behind his back.

The boy let his fingers trace over the design. "You are leashed to me. My servant and my dog to command."

"Yes. I shall be your sword and your knight. It has always been this way, young master."

"Does it bother you?"

"Master is asking for his servant's feelings on something?"

Ciel fidgeted and let his butler's hand drop. A blush coated his cheeks and he mumbled a garbled, "Never mind."

Sebastian chuckled behind him, and the boy felt the vibrations through his bare chest. His cheek was gently stroked by a warm hand and then his right eye covered with the palm of Sebastian's left. Ciel relaxed into the warm body behind him and felt Sebastian's other hand tuck his damp locks behind his ear. "I do not mind, young master."

Ciel remained quiet. His eyes fluttered and just before he fell asleep, he murmured between slightly swollen lips, "Why?"

"Because you are mine."

"Truth from the devil at last. He cares for nothing other than his claim on you. This torment," Ash waved his other hand over the reflections staring back at them, "owns you."


	6. Carousels in the Sky

"Sebastian..." Ciel's voice shook, betraying how much his body was trembling. Ash's white glove squeezed his shoulder in a gesture he assumed should be reassuring. The entire situation was making him ill. It was like being back in the cage; this darkness, and the shiny patch of floor, that door leading beyond. Sebastian's betrayal was sickening, unforgivable. He wanted to be sick, spilling his stomach across Ash's mirrored face. As his bile rose, he pushed a fist to his stomach but when he opened his mouth, it was a long repressed mantra that spilled forth. 

"I am still a Phantomhive. Monsters will not make me scream. I am not afraid of monsters."

"Ciel..." A soft voice called his name.

Ciel looked up with wide blue eyes shining with the force of the emotions he was fighting to keep in check. Lizzy was back and she stared at him with deep concern etched on her face. "It's alright, Ciel. There is still time." She held a gloved hand to him. Ciel stared at her slender fingers and then reached out his own hand. Their fingers intertwined, and Ciel steadied himself so she would not feel his hands tremble. He didn't know what he would be forced to relive next, but he was fairly certain he didn't want to do it alone. Ciel looked into her green eyes and realized he would never need to question Lizzie's loyalty. There was nothing she wanted more than to remain at his side for ever. Though, wasn't that was Sebastian had said, too? 'No matter where you go, I will be by your side until the end.' The boy looked down and wondered how long forever was. 

"Do you remember the carousel?" she asked.

Ciel nodded and prepared himself for the onslaught of images. He took a deep breath and straightened himself. Over his shoulder, Ash flashed an approving if not patronizing smile. Ciel sneered but then chose to ignore him. He felt the warm breeze brush against his cheek. A boy with ash black hair, and two large blue eyes was standing behind a large tree. He was perhaps seven years old and seemed to be hiding, with his back pressed against the wide trunk. A loud resounding 'WOOF' made him press a hand over his mouth to stifle a giggle. He looked up, contemplating the possibility of climbing into the tree, but there were no ready handholds for him. The next moment, a large dog bounded around the side of the tree and barked excitedly. The dog licked the boy's face several times and then threw himself down on the grass, with his front paws extended out in front of him and his hind end in the air, tail wagging furiously.

"Sebastian! Good boy. Good boy." Ciel laughed and dropped to his knees, running his hands over his dog's side. "You found me again. You win!" Sebastian rolled onto his back under the boy's attention and when Ciel moved to scratch under the dog's chin, he soon received a palm full of doggie kisses instead. He fell back on his rear as the dog righted himself and began to run a short distance away, and then come back to the boy, only to run off towards the mansion again. Ciel got himself up off the grass and then chased after Sebastian. "Slow down, Sebastian."

The young boy chased his dog all the way to the Phantomhive mansion. Elizabeth was just walking out into the sunshine as he came bounding up. The boy nodded to the butler Tanaka who had been presumably keeping an eye out to see if the boy required anything. Lizzie smiled brightly, the expression easily mirrored on the boy's face. Sebastian went to sit in the shade of a hedge and the two children ran off into the grass together. 

The young Earl felt a sharp pain in his chest watching his younger self play so gently with his long dead dog. 'I will call you Sebastian; he was my dog,' Ciel's memory supplied him from a time when Sebastian had become his demon, from a time before Ciel realized the demon had cast him into a pit of hell for his own amusement. 

"It was such a beautiful day. You always smiled so charmingly back then," Lizzie startled him out of his thoughts. 

"I did?" he asked

"You did. Watch..." Ciel nodded and let his mind lead him back to a spring day many years ago. Hand in hand, the two children skipped through the grass. The boy smiled and laughed and trailed lightly behind the blond girl bouncing in front of him. They tumbled past rows of trimmed bushes with startlingly green leaves and around flower beds bursting with pastel blooms. Late spring was beautiful. The children darted to the right around a wall of shrubs and down a short path. The path curled around a fountain encircled by a dozen or more white roses bushes. Ciel dropped Elizabeth's hand and skipped over to the fountain. He looked over the brick edge into the water. His smiling face looked back at him and the small boy had no idea then what a rare and valuable sight that would become. 

"These are my favorites..." The boy turned and traced a finger over the impossibly white petals of a rose. The heady scent grew stronger as the blooms were disturbed by childish hands. The boy's wide smile actually settled into a soft grin, his lips almost pressed together with the corners just tugging up. "One day when I'm grown, these will grow all over the grounds."

"That will be so lovely, Ciel! Can there be pink and red ones, too?" Lizzie asked and clasped her hands together under her chin.

"Maybe... I don't really care about those. These are the ones that I like."

"Come on, let's go." Lizzie took his hand and pulled him away from the fountain. The boy's grin returned and he tossed one look over his shoulder at the flowered fountain before running along after the girl. 

Ciel shook his head from where he watched. He did smile quite a lot then. He should feel nostalgic, he reasoned. These memories should conjure something in him other than hollow regret and a painful stabbing in his chest. His grounds were decorated with beautiful white roses. Somehow, no matter what damage his gardener managed to cause to the grounds, the lovely roses were always spared. He had never asked they be planted. Sometime after Sebastian had arrived to tend to him they had been replanted in number and tended to perfection. He bit his lip bitterly. Sometime after Sebastian had arrived to toy with him, he reminded himself. 

The cherry trees were in bloom. They had been planted in two straight rows with dark green boxwood hedges behind them. Beyond the natural aisle was a vast stretch of lush green grass and the children rushed towards it. A sturdy wind whipped down the path trapped between the rows of hedges and hurrying on it's way. The delicate pink cherry blossom petals were caught on the tendrils of the wind and swirled around the tree trunks then brushed against innocent young cheeks. Youthful laughter echoed through the grounds and they ran around the tree trunks, distracted from their destination by a snowfall of petals. 

When they finally emerged into the clearing, Ciel collapsed onto his back. His chest was heaving with exertion and he needed a minute or two to catch his breath. He ran his fingers through the blades of grass and looked up into the sky. He closed his eyes as he took a few more deep breathes, and felt Lizzie lie down in the grass with him. The top of her head touched his and her curls tickled the tips of his ears. 

"I think that one looks like Sebastian."

Lizzie tilted her head to see where his hand was pointing in the sky. She tilted her head just a little and her lips blossomed into a smile. "Yes it does look like Sebastian. That one over there looks a little like a teapot."

Ciel squinted his eyes and then nodded, though she couldn't see the motion. "It does."

"And that one looks like a cross face."

"Edward, then," Ciel said and giggled as Lizzy covered her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Oh, that was mean, Ciel."

They lay together for a time, just watching the clouds laze by and chattering about nothing of consequence as children do. Then, the boy squirmed his body sideways to lie next to Elizabeth and he pointed at a fluffy white cloud. "There; a carousel horse. Do you see it?"

"Oh, I do! I've always wanted to ride on a carousel horse. I can imagine it with flowers draped about its neck and a lovely pink saddle."

Ciel touched her hand and drew a circle in the sky with his finger. "It is great fun to ride the carousel. All of the horses going around and around and moving up and down. We will go together! I will ask mother and father to take us."

Ciel lifted his head and looked at Elizabeth. She hadn't changed much from those days. She was of course older, and had grown, even more so than he had. Her eyes were still as green as those garden hedge rows though, and her smile still as persistent as the spring sunshine. A pity the young earl felt he had much more in common with the icy blue winter. "I kept my word."

Lizzie looked up and Ciel could see the image from the floor reflecting in the orbs looking back at him. "Yes. You did not lie about that."

It was summer time, the season in London. All of the fashionable families from the countryside had come to the city to socialize and take advantage of the frivolities that were only available during the short summer months. Ciel held his father's hand and looked out the window of their coach. Lizzie sat across from him, next to Rachael and was having as much trouble remaining still as Ciel was.

"Are we really going to ride the carousel?" she asked, looking up at her Aunt Rachael.

It was Vincent who answered with a soft smile. "We are. Just a short distance through Trafalgar Square is Hampstead Heath. There is a funfair there now and a carousel." He looked down at his son who had returned to sit properly in the seat. A hint of pride shone in his eyes and Ciel smiled into his face. "Ciel has told us that he would like to make you happy by taking you to ride on the carousel."

Hands clasped, the four of them made their way leisurely through the fair heading towards the large carousel. There was so much to see as entertainers walked among the crowds of people with bright masks and flashy clothing. Fortune tellers hovered over small tables decorated with bright scarves. They waved to the boy as he walked past with his family. Young Ciel shied away and tried to hide behind his father's leg as they walked. Vincent chuckled and patted the boy's hand. "There is nothing to be feared from false prophecies, Ciel." A bit further along a puppeteer was plying his trade for an adoring crowd. Punch and Judy, the man had called them, as they walked by. Polite but enthusiastic laughter followed them around a bend and mingled with the beautiful music drifting from the nearby bandstand. 

Rachael grinned at the children and cleared her throat. "Do you know there is a lovely little tale about riding a carousel?" Lizzie looked at Ciel with wide eyes and when he looked as excited as she did, they both turned their attention to his mother. "A carousel travels around and around with no beginning and no end. It is a race that cannot be won by equestrians who cannot place. There is something timeless about riding on the carousel. Here in England, the carousel travels in a counter clock wise direction, but in other parts of the world it travels in reverse. There is a myth that says riding on the carousel can age you depending on which direction you ride it." Rachael glanced to the side to see Vincent shaking his head lightly, but the children were waiting on her every word. "So if you ride the carousel too long, you might find you've aged yourself right out of being children." She laughed then, and it was a lightly musical sound. 

Ciel exhaled sharply in the darkness with a beacon of tainted white over his shoulder. He had forgotten that sound. The force of it pushing its way back into his consciousness was not welcome. The young boy was quiet in thought while Lizzie chattered on about the little story and what color carousel horse she would like to ride. The boy lifted his eyes. "That is a silly story."

"Of course it is," his father said.

"You cannot force time to speed up. Not even if you are trying very hard to do so because sweets come with the eleven o'clock tea."

The previous Earl of Phantomhive nodded. "That is true, Ciel. Likewise, one cannot turn back the clock on time either. Once something is lost, one can never get it back. Remember that, young man."

The boy nodded, and Ciel, he still remembered.

The carousel was a wonder to behold to eyes that still shone with innocence. Horses in a variety of colors stood proudly ready to prance their riders in an ceaseless circle. Each one was a bit different. Ciel chose an ink black horse with a white bridle and saddle. Fine silver lines were etched across the saddle and a wreath of stylized crimson roses circled the carousel horse's neck. 

"Why did you chose that one? I thought you liked blue." 

Ciel turned to his father as he waited for Lizzie to choose her favorite horse. Ciel already knew she would take the one next to him, but he was too busy to suggest it to her. "I like this one. It's a good one. Isn't it?"

"It is. Black is a strong color. It is an all encompassing thing, passionate and steady. All else pales in comparison to it. When you are in the dark, you do not need to be afraid. You only need to learn to master it. Take control of the darkness and make it work for you. Just like this horse."

Ciel nodded but his eyes clouded slightly with confusion. Lizzie chose the horse beside him, as Ciel knew she would. It was a lovely white horse with a peach and lavender saddle and bridle. Its mane was decorated with several colors of roses from red and pink to a light blue, while the horse's tail streamed with carved ribbons that would never move in the breeze. 

"He was already grooming you to be an adult. He never intended his son to meet his end so soon." Ash's voice was hot and moist against Ciel's ear. For the moment, he couldn't find it in himself to care. "Oh, it was a dirty job he preformed, but he still took every pain to ensure his son would be a strong successful, man one day." Now Ciel was burning with anger again. 

"How much time is left?" he asked in a stiff voice.

Ash arched a brow and actually looked mildly shocked in his dark reflection. "Oh, a few minutes I would say. Why?"

"Because I assume when the time is up I will in one way or another find myself FAR away from you."

Ash's metallic chuckle vibrated beneath his skin and into the darkness beyond. Ciel's memory of the event played out just before the events showed reflected in the glossy tile. They had ridden around and around and then eventually hopped off and enjoyed the rest of the day idly walking around the funfair while his parents socialized here and there. Elizabeth squeezed his hand and his eyes opened to refocus on the reflections playing out. 

Only, he didn't remember this part. 

He was sitting on his horse and laughing along with Lizzie. Young Ciel's blue eyes and Lizzie's big green ones met for a moment. Everything then seemed to slow down painfully so. He could no longer feel the breeze on his skin, or the air in his lungs. Everything around the two children seemed to be lost in a hazy blur and the boy realized he couldn't turn his head. Not only had the wind seemed to vanish but so did all sound. The vast nothingness was strangely loud in his ears at first until he adjust quickly to the lack of sound. Then though, he felt himself start to panic. His own voice sounded with in his head not making it to his lips.

"You cannot force time to speed up. Not even if you are trying very hard to do so because sweets come with the eleven o'clock tea."

And Ash's voice echoed back to him, satiny and distastefully warm, "Ah, but what if you could?"

His chest cried out with joy as the boy sucked lungfulls of air in after feeling like he could not breathe. The world moved as it should and the breeze blew hair to tickle his cheek. Ciel from where he watched the events unfold froze with shock. The boy on the carousel horse lowered an elegantly clad leg to dismount from his horse. His long trousers were a rich brown and exceptionally well made. The boy... no, the man whom Ciel had become held out a hand to a beautiful young woman. She had her blonde hair plaited together down her back and wore a smart hat perched atop the golden strands. She was clad in a lovely gown of moss green and slid easily off the side of the horse as she took his hand. Elizabeth had become a truly beautiful woman. 

Ciel blinked rapidly, watching a memory he could not possibly be having. He had grown to look similar to his father. He didn't reach Vincent's full height, but their builds were similar. Ciel remained a bit narrower in the shoulders but his proud and strong posture was all his father. His face was similar in build and his lips pressed together and tugged at the corners. It was a small smile, the familiar one he remembered his father wore when truly content. Ciel had inherited it. His eyes were still on the large side and still shone bright blue, just like his mother's. 

"Father!"

The man Ciel had become turned quickly, reached his arms out to a small girl, perhaps six years old. She slid into his arms from the blue horse she was riding. She had long ash black pigtails and bright green eyes. Her small face reminded him wistfully of his wife when she was a child and Ciel pressed he lips to his daughter's forehead. He set her down gently and with a shy smile, she latched onto his pant leg and watched her mother move to the next horse, a deep green one. Elizabeth took a small boy's hand and helped him slide off the side of the horse. He giggled with pure glee and clapped his hands together. He looked perhaps seven or eight years old with a mop of straight blonde hair falling into wide blue eyes. His cheeks were distinctly rounded as Ciel's has been at that age but his smile was wide and dimpled like his mother's. 

The small blonde boy chimed happily, "Can we ride it again, please?"

"I don't want to ride it again," his daughter whispered from behind his leg.

"No, not now, darling. Let us go and see what else there is to be seen," Elizabeth's cooed to her son and Ciel took his small daughter's hand in his, and offered his wife his other arm.

"Yes. Besides, Uncle Edward is waiting. I'm sure he wanted to show you something," Ciel added and the small family walked away from the carousel. A man with two clear eyes smiled serenely at his family. He had a beautiful, capable woman on his arm who had born him two lovely children. He could see his eyes and the wonder he once possessed in the blonde boy while his soft voice and dark hair graced his young girl. The man personifying the future that was sacrificed on a stone table under the harsh glint of a knife turned his head to sky and locked eyes with the boy who wished for revenge and paid for it in blood.


	7. Who is the Real Monster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late chapter my dears. I was on vacation. Also, thank you for sticking with me. Almost to the end, this is the second to last chapter.

Ciel made a sound deep in the back of his throat. It was the sound a wounded animal makes after it has been nearly fatally wounded. It was not a scream and not a grunt, but the sound of having ones future wrenched out through the vocal cords. His hands and knees worked together to try and propel himself backwards. It wasn't conscious thought but an instinctual need to get away from the visions staring up at him. After only a couple of inches, he felt his back slam into Ash's shin's though the man was still visibly absent. 

"Are you...afraid?" Ash asked with no sincerity.

Scowling, Ciel calmed himself and pushed himself away from the intrusive Phantom. "That is not real."

A sigh from behind the boy signaled the white butler's impatience. "It could be. You have nothing left to lose and everything to gain. You see that, do you not?"

"What do you get from this...arrangement?" Ciel gestured to his clear eye.

"Why, purity, of course. You are cleansed, Master Phantomhive. Hardworking, respectable and pure without the taint of a demon to cloud you. What else would I want?" Ciel could almost hear the smile in the man's voice and he cringed. 

What did he have left to lose? How much could one person lose? Ciel had already lost it all. In his short thirteen years, he has lost more than most people did in their entire lives. His family had been ripped from him. In the cold recesses of hell, he learned he could be bent and broken. The boy learned to fear monsters, and he learned that pride had a price. When it was ripped from you, it hurt and the pain lasted and lasted. His father had once told him, once something was lost, there was no way to regain it. He believed these words. When he had tamed a monster with leash and sacrifice, he thought perhaps the rule was not absolute. 

In the shadows of darkness and shackled by his own weakness, he learned the truth. The truth was absolute. Devils can lie with the truth and betray with their loyalty. Ciel had lost what little control he thought he still possessed and the knowledge that he never realized it at the time left a bitter acrid taste on his tongue. He lost a future with a wife and children to carry on the name of Phantomhive. 

He had lost it all. 

Now here, in this dark place of reflection, he had the chance to have it back again. He took a moment to try and get to his feet. Ash's warm hand slipped from his shoulder and allowed him to stand. The young Earl brushed his knees off and stretched aching legs. He squared his slim shoulders and took a deep breath. 

He took several confident steps forward and took Elizabeth's hands into his own. She smiled at him and lowered her gaze demurely. 

"You are out of time, young Phantomhive. It passes so quickly. Choose."

"It is all my choice, is it? It all comes to this moment. One moment to plan a future. One moment to alter the course my life will take."

"Yes. Now."

"I have made up my mind," Ciel's voice was strong again. Confident. He stepped closer to Elizabeth and made sure to draw himself up to his full height. He swallowed thickly and felt the sweat stand out on his palms. He never actually planned to live long enough to ever see this moment. The young man felt his breath catch in his chest and he stared at Lizzie's lips, soft and pink. With sure fingers, he brushed the blond curls from her cheeks and gently cupped them in both of his palms. Her skin was so smooth and surprisingly warm in his hands. Once more time seemed to slow and all he could truly hear was the thudding of his heart and his nervous pulse in his ears. He raised himself on his toes just slightly to bring himself level with her mouth, and her eyes fell closed. He drew her lips close to his as he whispered the name...

"Sebastian..."

He jerked his head back, the word surprising even himself. He released the girl's head and she stared at him with angry green eyes. It was almost painful, the pulsing inside of his chest, his head, even his limbs. The fibers of his being sutured his resolve and Ciel's soul careened within him aching to be acknowledged. 

"You are a fool!" Ash bellowed from somewhere behind him, but it was Lizzie's mouth that moved with his accusation. Her eyes slowly began to turn muddy and then glow with the same eerie lavender hue the angel possessed. 

Ciel's soul was awake once more though, and the deceiver's power over him was waning. 

_'Which one of us is the fool?'_ Ciel blinked twice as Sebastian's voice echoed in his head. He had sat on the edge of his bed, cold and in the dark. The stress from an exhausting day was still curled between his shoulder blades and through his neck, despite having spent longer in the bath than normal. Sebastian had remained unusually quiet during the whole ordeal and worked to relieve tight muscles as he bathed. Ciel looked up into scarlet eyes and his butler dropped to a knee. Sebastian cupped his hand and in the candlelight his voice was surprisingly soft when he spoke. Ciel remembered... Remembered how comforting it had been in that moment, to feel the warm touch of hands that, if only for a brief time, wanted nothing from him. His precious ring blinked up at him in the candle light and he had wanted to be thankful. The sentiment had died on his tongue as the voices of the dead returned to haunt him. Still, it was a gift Sebastian had given him. One of many over the years, and just another one he had never acknowledged. How many times had Sebastian given to him and expected nothing in return, nothing but their agreed upon deal?

"Which one of us is the fool?" Ciel spat back with wide, fierce eyes. 

Ash practically vibrated with hatred. "All you need do is take what is being given to you!"

"Only a fool tries to bribe the damned." 

And, oh, how he was damned. Ciel almost found it laughable. He had been damned from the very beginning and hadn't he welcomed it? Had not Ciel decided in his moments of torment that his own personally crafted darkness was somehow safe and comforting, and that there was nothing waiting for him in the light that he cared to keep company with? 

The images came so quickly that it was disorienting. He survived in a world of black and of red. Memories of blood spilled in his name, and lives ended on his whim, bubbled to the surface. Always behind them was a man, no HIS man cloaked in black with shining red eyes, carrying out his will. _Ciel's will._ The power he wielded was heady. The control intoxicating. He had loved it. He was a small candle that had been fanned into an inferno and the flame would burn itself out quickly. Illusions would be banished in the light of such a dark fire. 

Ciel's lips curled into a sneer. "I have made my decision!" He took a forcible step forward and raised a pointed finger toward the center of Elizabeth's chest. "I am a Phantomhive, and I am not afraid of monsters." The force of his conviction as he stepped forward caused the girl to step backwards. Her entire visage was shimmering now, the pale colors of her dress fading and her frame stretching.

"Mine. It was my doing. All of it. The revenge? That shall be mine, too."

Certainty was wafting from the boy like a cloak, protecting him from the shadow of illusion. Inside his chest, he felt the tears and lesions of a short lifetime of hell searing to life. His very soul pulsed within his small form demanding to be acknowledged. "You are a fine liar, you bastard. Fortunately demons tell the truth, and the truth is absolute."

He forced himself forward and the creature that was half Elizabeth, half Ash stepped backward once more. He plunged himself into those memories which he never wanted to experience again. He found himself lying on a cold stone floor, so bloodied and broken that he could no longer roll himself over. When he stared, truly stared into the darkness, only the darkness stared back. Oh, the demon came for him. Ciel remembered it clearly. When he was truly lost to the den of fiends and his sanity splintered under the torture, the touching, and the bestial sweating, his soul renounced faith and hope, and had called to the darkness. Then, he saw the eyes. Then the spark of pride, the sliver that remained and forced his lungs to fill and his heart to beat, called out to the demon. The demon came. He came to the name Sebastian Michaelis, and Ciel's retribution was fierce indeed. 

"In my own cursed name I have ordered that you be destroyed. This is my life, my hell and I have shaped it myself. When it is over, it will be with a grand devil at my side and not you, you good for nothing fucking bastard."

"The life you could have!" the angel creature screamed with his mouth twisting.

"LIES. All of it lies, the bliss you promised? There is no such thing."

He thought back to the moonlight casting shadows on the floor. He never feared the dark, especially with those two red eyes watching him. He had never felt broken then, never used for entertainment, never punished for his pride. Hell was dark and cold unless it was shared. Tussled sheets and warm damp hair made it even more inviting than what lay beyond the door. In Sebastian's hands, he had found something he never thought would be his. His loneliness was kept at bay, and his need fulfilled. In the end, it was never torment; it was surrender. Yes, the bliss promised him was a lie, but the life he led was all he wanted. 

"Unclean, impure, unclean, impure..." Ash began to rant as his hands tore at his own hair while his features contorted with rage.

"I have made my decision. SEBASTIAN!" A searing pain that Ciel had only felt twice in his life now, ripped through his head. His right eye glowed fiercely with light turning his entire iris purple. He looked down into the reflections of the floor and watched as a pentagram carved itself into his eye. Blood coursed down his right cheek and within a few moments he could taste it as it dripped into his mouth. With unbridled glee, he began to laugh. It was cold and sharp and he wrapped his arms around his stomach to steady himself. Loyalty was something to be earned, Ciel decided. Sebastian had earned it many times over.


	8. Pain and Trust on Tower Bridge

A blinding flash of light erupted from where Ash had been standing. The shock dried the laughter in Ciel's mouth and caused him to throw an arm up in front of his eyes. Everything went deathly silent for a moment and he suddenly felt like he was falling. The sound retuning all at once was deafening. He could hear the sound of London burning and of wind whipping through metal supports and supply crates. Sebastian's voice echoed and seemed to vibrate as it passed through him. The angel? Ciel could hear him too, stuttering about a demon. There was fear in the high squealing of the creature and Ciel wanted to laugh, wanted to smile and taunt, but that would have to wait. 

He had felt like he was falling; he was right. As he was being pulled back into the waking world, the battle on the bridge continued. A large supporting structure collapsed under the pummeling of wing and boot. The floor sloped precariously and Ciel was thrown sliding off the edge of the bridge. Sebastian had asked for his eyes to remain closed. He squeezed them closed and he trusted that the demon would fulfill his orders, fulfill their contract. He trusted Sebastian would not betray him. The boy's hand caught the edge of the bridge and he held on with all of the strength in his small body. 

A pained gasp escaped him. He had been injured and the puncture was now screaming at him. He felt fresh blood soaking his side and the muscles being stretched as he hung by one arm were protesting vehemently. Ciel bit his lip and he breathed through the pain, and through the panic. His feet dangled and his coat was whipped around his hips. _Make him hurt, Sebastian; make him feel all of this pain,_ Ciel thought and he clenched his fingers tighter. 

"Young Master, can you hold on until I count down from ten?"

Ten seconds and it would all be over. Ash hadn't lied about one thing. Time was a difficult thing to measure. How long had the beast had him ensnared? Thirty minutes, he said? Seconds, Ciel realized. Mere seconds. It took but a moment to nearly convince Ciel that his plans had gone wrong, that he had lost the game. He would never allow that to happen again. 

"Yes." He didn't have breath for anything more elaborate. 

Sebastian began to count down, and Ash began to scream. He screamed and he _screamed._ The boy curled into himself against the pain. Deep within his soul, he laughed and rejoiced and delighted in the creature's misery. His fingers slipped and he suddenly jerked as he tried to regain his grip. Ciel's arm was shaking against the strain of holding himself up. He could taste blood from where he chewed his lip. He was going to fall, and it would all be for nothing. He could not let that happen. 

"I am Ciel Phantomhive. Ash Landers is a monster. I am not afraid of monsters. I will not scream." The words were barely above a whisper and he licked the blood from his lips as he spoke. As the conviction tumbled over his teeth and into the cold London night, he felt himself grow stronger. He whispered to himself and he listened to Sebastian count and the boy trusted he would live just long enough. The sound of flesh ripping and bones shattering mixed with the rustle of thousands of feathers. They were all sounds the boy of thirteen years knew unfathomably well. All sounds no boy should know at all. Then, the screaming stopped...

Ciel felt another flash of light above him but could do nothing further to shield his face. He heard Sebastian's steps across the bridge, metallic and sharp, like talons. "One."

Ten seconds. 

"Master. It's done." Sebastian's voice was rich and velvety and proud. Ciel was thrilled. He slowly opened his eyes and for a moment was startled at the view. He turned his head upwards. Looking into those crimson eyes, Ciel realized torment did not own him, but the demon did, owned every part of him that could be owned, and the small part of him that couldn't be, Ciel had given to him freely. 

The boy's lips pressed together with the corners tugged up. Perhaps this ordeal had taught him one or two things. He was reminded how to smile, truly and honestly. Sebastian looked down upon him with gentle eyes, glimmering with pride and something else. Affection? Possession, maybe? To Ciel, it didn't matter. Sebastian was his as much as he belonged to Sebastian and that was enough to make him happy and able to feel the satisfaction his completed revenge brought. Ciel locked eyes with his demon... and the boy let go. 

~Fin~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So thank you for sticking with me all the way to the end. I've loved reading your comments and reviews. I hope you enjoyed the story as much as I did writing it. I really enjoy taking a part of the story we all think we know, and showing what might be happening in the background, inside the characters heads. Also, I love Ash as a villain and I might enjoy writing him a little too much. Ciel is a fascinating character to explore and I hope you enjoyed the trip through his psyche, tortured past, and the acceptance of what his soul came to know the moment he was chained to that table. I'm a little sad the journey is over, but I am so glad I was able to take it and that you came with me.
> 
> As one might come to conclude from my writings, Ciel and Sebastian are two incredibly important characters to me. I was eager to explore the emotional turmoil that might come from a seed of doubt being planted within Ciel's mind. However, Ciel is one of the strongest and most intelligent characters I've ever had the privilege of meeting and it takes much more than a manipulative angel to truly best him. In the end, one's soul won't be denied and Sebastian owns that fully. And as Ciel concludes at the end of the story, the small part of him that Sebastian could not fully lay ownership to, Ciel has freely given to him. 
> 
> A word on the ending... My stories tend to fill in the gaps. I try to write what we do not see. We know that Ciel let's go and falls from the bridge. We also know that isn't the end for them and Sebastian dives into the water after him. So, the story ends with his fall. I hope you all find that as fulfilling as I did. What was important to me was knowing what was in his mind at that moment - what was behind that perfect smile that we so rarely get to see. We get to know what he is thinking about that soft beautiful smile his impossibly perfect demon graces him with. Maybe he thinks he might die in that fall... that is food for another story. But what I can tell you, is that when that boy let's go... he is finally happy and finally at peace and that is the best was possible I could think of to end such a story. 
> 
> So a question for you dears, is there anything you'd like to see from me next? A piece of the story you wished you knew more about? Some scene or story arc that doesn't quite make sense to you? I'm always looking for the next inspiring idea. Maybe it's yours. Drop me a line!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Force of Habit](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1795360) by [packardian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/packardian/pseuds/packardian)




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